Architects: A-B Tech building could shrink

Architects say revision would save county as much as $14M

Jun. 17, 2013

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ASHEVILLE — Changing plans for an allied health and workforce development building proposed at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College could dramatically reduce its cost, building architects say.

The savings could be accomplished by removing an auditorium and one floor of the building, architects with local firm Padget & Freeman Architects said.

The changes would get the cost of the building in the range of $36 million to $38 million, said Scott Donald, a principal at Padgett & Freeman. It had been planned to cost around $50 million or more.

The new figures are not much more than the $35 million estimated cost of expanding and renovating the school’s Rhododendron Building, a proposal Buncombe County Manager Wanda Greene floated at a meeting of A-B Tech’s board of trustees June 3 as a possible substitute for the allied health building plans.

The allied health building was intended as the centerpiece of an $83 million building program at the school funded by a quarter-cent sales tax increase county voters approved in November 2001.

But officials with Buncombe County, in charge of constructing the building, and the school have differed over various aspects of the program since shortly after the vote.

Simplifying

One issue is A-B Tech’s desire for a 16,000-square-foot auditorium or meeting room in the allied health building. County officials say the school has given different accounts of what it would be used for and say its inclusion could create financing problems if it is frequently rented to outside groups.

As originally planned, the building would be more than 180,000 square feet. Architects said that figure could be reduced to a little more than 150,000.

Padgett & Freeman architects Maggie Carnevale, Eugene Edwards and Donald said in a recent interview that planning a renovation and expansion of Rhododendron would take six to eight months. But elements of the allied health building plans could be changed to accommodate county concerns in about six weeks, they said.

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Removing the auditorium would yield significant savings because it would eliminate the need for especially long beams in the ceiling above the room and floors above that would otherwise be required to spread the building weight without having columns in the room, Donald said.

Current plans call for the auditorium to take up part of the first floor and classrooms and other uses to be located in the rest of the first floor, the second and third floors and part of the fourth floor.

The rest of the fourth floor and all of the fifth would be “shell” space that would be left without interior finishes until school growth means it is needed.

Donald said if the auditorium is removed, finished space planned for the fourth floor could be moved to the first floor instead and the entire fourth floor could be eliminated. That would still leave room in the building for future expansion, reduce the need for parking around it, and the shorter building would be less visible in the neighborhood, he said.

Changing elements within a building to meet budget is something architects do routinely, Edwards said.

If A-B Tech decides later that it still wants an auditorium, it could build one to connect to the rear of the historic Ivy Building and use Ivy for offices, restrooms and other facilities for the auditorium, Donald said.

A-B Tech President Hank Dunn said recently that the school has spent $3.3 million so far on planning and related costs for the allied health building.

A Candler couple, Jack and Carolyn Ferguson, are giving $5 million for naming rights to the building, although Dunn has said the gift is unrestricted and could be used for other purposes.

Carolyn Ferguson declined comment when contacted by the Citizen-Times.

Setting priorities

The changes would address several of Greene’s concerns about the building but would do nothing about the distance between the site and the rest of A-B Tech’s main campus, another issue Greene raised at the June 3 trustees’ meeting.

It is more than a 0.4-mile walk from the site to the center of the main campus. Architects also have identified that as an issue, Donald said, although Dunn has said most allied health students do not take classes elsewhere at the school once they start health programs. Rhododendron is close to the middle of campus.

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Greene said she has asked Padgett & Freeman for alternatives to save money and that she will seek more reaction from school trustees next week.

Her proposal also called for spending $15 million on a parking garage at the school.

“I think everything is on the table, but we start with what is really needed by allied health because that was the promise” made to voters, she said.

A recently passed law gives Buncombe County final say on the building program.

Four students in the school’s X-ray technology program said last week that Rhododendron as it stands today is outmoded. Some wondered whether an addition would meet the needs of allied health programs.

“I think they would spend just as much money fixing it up and adding on,” said Colleen Daley, a Weaverville resident.

The current building is old, outdated and “a lot of the equipment we can’t get in the building,” said Kayce Perry, of Candler.

Equipment in Rhododendron is so old that “it’s night and day going from here to an actual site” where the students might work one day, said Joe Solleman, of Black Mountain.